3. Doing a series
of workshops followed by running some Youth Theatre sessions.

You know me, folks.
It was behind door 3.

As part of Grow Fest, I went along to the Daniel Bye and
Richard Bean workshops. Grow is a cool
fest opening the doors of Hull Truck to try and rethink their space, their
programming and approach to new writing and new work (e.g. work not written 36
years ago).

Daniel’s workshop entitled ‘Theatre Is Basically A Pub’ was
about bringing that informal approach he uses in his theatre to the table. The pub table. It was a good analogy, that in the theatre we’re
expected to sit, neatly in silence whilst ushers, lights and seats enforce a
strict set of rules about passivity.

On Wednesday with Say Owt, me and Stu ran a open mic at
the Nook. It was lovely with just enough
performers to make it worth doing, just enough audiences to make it full but
not too many it becomes a slog or a rammed room.

If poetry can flow into audience, I think it’s the job of
the compere to make them dirty again. If
poetry can clean your soul, it can also wash over them. Right into those Nooks and crannies! The compere gets them rowdy, gets them
responding, laughing, thinking and wiling on the next performer. The compere makes the audience a little bit
naughty, by which I mean, awake and wary.

But Dan’s workshop was great approaching from a theatre
perspective, and see from the other side, to unlearn expectations and apply my
experiences to an insightful analysis of performer-audience relations. Plus, we played some dead good games.

Theatre formats are a constrictive luxury. Good audiences have no escape. On Wednesday at the Nook, people could nip to
the bar, the toilet, outside all in the way (visually and aurally) of the
performer. The comepre can try and
manage this, but the performer has to deal with this. Phones can go off, people can whisper,
scribble, yawn. It’s all close, it’s all
intimate and raw. In some ways, many
ways, it’s more terrifying than a 1000+ seater venue of anonymous bodies. The Nook had a lovely audience, but they were
living, breathing and existing much more tangibly.

After my workshop with Richard Bean, I led a couple of
workshops with Hull Truck Youth Theatre.
If Yorkshire folk call a spade a spade, then Hull folk tell the spade it’s not doing its
job properly. They'd love a spoken word Say Owt open mic, they would. Luckily, I think this
scrawny York kid won them over.

Wednesday, 18 May 2016

He’s the galactic Empire, a power with more resources
than all the real-world Empires of our history combined. I’m a plucky band of Rebels, darting from
planet to planet, attempting small-scale missions in the world-weary attempt to
cause entire worlds to rise up.

The box says 2-3 hours.
It’s been at least 4. So far, he’s
not found my Rebel base, so far I’ve not completed nearly enough
Objectives. It’s a war of attrition. And it’s dark outside, like the inky black of
space. And twice as cold.

I’ve been tired this year, and I’m not sure why. I started with the intention to write a whole
host of new poetry. I have a document on
this computer which is called, quite conveniently, Poems 2016. But none of them are of a quality I’m happy
with, and none of them are finished.

Obi-Wan Kenobi has been captured.

I wrote a poem about the 2015 York Floods, but found it
too crude and blunt for a complex issue which affected an entire City. I wrote a poem about William Shakespeare, but
it’s just not intricate enough to be worth the niche-ness. In all frustrating seriousness, I’m in a bit
of a rut.

My housemate lands on a planet, which was my Rebel
base. But I moved it. Sneak

Clearly, neither of us are enjoying this game very much
anymore. We could easily quit, and recommence
in the morning. But we look at the clock,
guestimate another 30 mins and crack on.
30 mins passes and Obi-Wan Kenobi has been frozen in Carbointe. I know the feeling.

So I’ve tried to change my diet, and get some more protein
in. It feels like it’s helped
somewhat. I cut out eggs and milk
without too much commitment to the proper replacements. I’ve added back in eggs, but trying to make
up the difference with more Quorn, spinach and kale.

I tried to blow up the Death Star, but didn’t send in enough
ships. The Death Star blows up another planet. The Rebellion isn’t looking too healthy.

That’s not to say I haven’t been busy. The Say Owt events we’ve run have been great,
and I’ve been doing plenty of busy work for the Laurence Batley Theatre and
Harrogate Youth Theatre. Me and my good
chum Nat have been making a theatre show for touring in 2017 (dinosaurs, punks,
y’know, the usual). Oh and blogging.

But sometimes the best laid plans for mice and Sith Lords
go awry, and you find yourself, at 23.49, writing a blog as a kind of apology
to yourself.

I’m starting to think up new pieces for my next fringe show,
a continuation of Up The Nerd Punks imaginatively titled Up The Nerd Punks 2. I have some poems in my head. I even started writing a new one the other
day.

It’s hard when the Empire have a Super Star Destroyer and
you’ve just got a few Transport ships.

It can be hard when there are so many productive people
in your scene, and genre. Making new
poems, getting gigs, getting commissions, getting praise. If you’re a bit stuck, there’s no one to
blame but yourself. I’m not talking about
being stuck due to mental illness, anxiety of depression, you can’t help
that. But stuck because nothing’s really
flowing, well. The force flows through
us all.

The game ends sometime around 1am. Chewbacca has been turned to the Dark Side,
but in doing so I can ‘cash in’ my Objective to not have any of my characters captured. We half-heartedly argue about whether Chewie
is considered ‘captured’ if he’s not part of the Empire’s side.

It doesn’t matter, I’ve won simply by holding out. The Base is secure, the Empire will
eventually be toppled and freedom will reign across the Galaxy someday.

You can keep plugging away. Trying different objectives, holding out,
defending or attacking. Consolidating or
controlling. As long as the Empire haven’t
force-choked you into submission, there’s always a New Hope.

One day those fireworks with spark over the moon of
Endor.

I sleepily pack up, and we promise to try the Game of
Thrones Card Game this week.

Sunday, 1 May 2016

Imagine my surprise
when the local poetry event sometimes referred to by the younger generations as
‘Spokening Words’) which I had heard was meant to be one of the highlights of
the so-called York
so-called Poetry so-called Scene turned out to be nothing more than a sub-par
collection of, if you’ll pardon my French, wee-poor words.

God it was
awful.

It was like having your ears being drilled by a rusty
screwdriver posing as a drill.

It was like
having your eyes being poked by
scorpions who haven’t had a day off in weeks

It was like having your teeth being furiously chiselled a drunk and sexually frustrated Michelangelo.

It was like someone jabbing their feet into your nostrils despite a no
feet policy.

It was like having your tongue being scraped by an ill-constructed tongue-scraper.

It was
AWFUL.

Never before
in my LITERALLY half-decades of going to see people say things into microphones
have I seen such a God-awful display of people saying things into microphones
IN THE WRONG WAY.

Lily Luty went up first. What happened? That lovely theatre student must have picked
up an Eminem album from ‘the internet’ because she attempted a dire rap about ‘shizzles’
and ‘nizzles’ threatening to drop ‘the bomb.’.
The only bomb that was dropped was one for common deceny. Clearly this, THIS, is the corrupting influence of hip-hop. Yo indeed, madam!

Next up was Monica Offlebaum, who on the surface presented
herself as your typical, run-of-the-mill German Spiritualist but in-between her
entirely predictable clichéd lines we associate so well with the German Spiritualist
poetry-form where the most brazen of subtexts about sex as if we’ve never herd of sex
before and should all be amazed that sex
is a thing that happens. Get over it, Ms
Offle-BORE. Ha!

Taylor Han completely
misread the audience’s insistence on left-leaning socially right-on poetry
designed to challenge the social order.
Instead their attempt to throw their support behind a certain cranium-rugged
American dictator-to-be was a misplaced misrepresentation of what The People
really want. For shame! Did people right poems about Genghis Khan in
1206? I very much doubt it!

Geneva Rust-Orta. It was quite poetry is it? Was it?
Could it? You haven’t quiet got
it, have you? Just saying funny things
isn’t quite poetry is it? Your
performance wasn’t it, was it? No, it
couldn’t be. Just try and get it, next
time.

Arthur
Fisher’s inability to finish his poems was quite simply proof that current
artists lack the inability to complete things which

I would
suggest, in future, Ms Gardner
focus more on her Hard Noise projects (of which I am a rotundly severe fan). Her last EP was suitably hard, like a bodybuilder
eating burnt toast whilst reading Crime & Punishment and I am looking
forward to her next musical expenditure.
Her poetry was never going to be as groggily stimulating as her blog.

James
Rotchell’s piece lacked a certain something

The final ‘poet’,
so-called ‘TJ’
couldn’t write ‘poetry’ if he asked the ‘audience’ for ‘suggestions’, took
those ‘suggestions’, formed those ‘suggestions’ in his ‘mind’ and then put those
‘suggestions’ together into a string of words ‘which’ came ‘out’ as a ‘poem’.

As for Mr
Simpson (aka ‘Dan Simpson’) the
so-called host I want to know weather in That London they allow men of such
forthwright forthwrightery to be that close to a microphone.

As for the
judges, that Mr Singleton
was as drunk as a Lord, and I should know.
Mr Dean seemed more concerned
with giving scores than actually scoring gives.
That Henry Raby, however, made
some valid points and I have since re-evaluated my stance on Tories.

I trust in
future all poetry events will consist or either booking former, current or
future Poet Laureates or at the least
the entire line-up of the Latitude poetry stage.